South African Jurist Navi Pillay Wins Nobel Peace Prize Amidst U.S. and Israeli Backlash
South African jurist Navi Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on international justice, drawing criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Newsnibs Staff
- 2026-10-10
- Updated 1:50 AM UTC
(Oslo, Norway)
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday to Navi Pillay, an 85-year-old South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief, for her work promoting international law and international justice. The announcement, made in Oslo, came two days after the anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack and on the 125th anniversary of the prize's inception.
Pillay chaired the U.N.-backed Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, which concluded about a year before the award that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza with intent to destroy Palestinians. The same commission, under Pillay, also found that Hamas committed war crimes during its October 7, 2023 attack, which killed about 1,200 people. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed since that attack, according to the Associated Press. Israel has refused to cooperate with the commission since it was established in 2021.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the prize was meant to remind the world that "peace requires justice" and that jurists guard the line between order and chaos. The award is widely seen as a rebuke to President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both of whom have rejected Pillay's findings and criticized international courts. Netanyahu has called the genocide finding a "blood libel" and Pillay a "bigot."
Pillay received news of the award while in Nuremberg, Germany. She warned that efforts to weaken international criminal justice "endanger the progress painstakingly made since Nuremberg." She served as a judge on the International Criminal Court from 2003 to 2008.
Hours after the announcement, the Trump administration imposed sweeping new sanctions on the ICC, aiming to dismantle the court over its investigations into the United States and its allies. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration would block ICC assets in the U.S. and would "ban transactions with this rogue court," setting a six-month timeline for winding down business with it. The U.S. had already sanctioned 13 ICC staff members before this round.
Speaking at a rally in Syracuse, New York, Trump said he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize himself and called the Nobel Committee "crooked." He dismissed Pillay as "a liberal person who works at the United Nations who nobody has ever heard of."
The prize carries an award of 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 million.
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